Burly days

As a long time citizen of the underworld, I like my entertainment to run from the bawdy to the downright obscene. Honolulu, mixed-up trickster that she is, is happy to indulge with a festival devoted to Spam and a vaudeville production of Alice in Wonderland on the same day.

The annual Spam festival, Spam Jam, blocks off the stretch of Kalakaua in front of the Royal Hawaiian Center to create a space for fans to unashamedly indulge in the canned pork product. It is a carnival of the lowbrow; low-taste. Surrounding restaurants dream up new Spam-heavy dishes and sell them at street stalls. You can buy Spam hats, Spam t-shirts, Spam slippers and Spam toys. And, on my visit, there was a live band playing Journey songs too.

Cherry Blossom Cabaret’s variety show was an ambitious mix of burlesque, music, film and aerial dance. The show was an all-knowing referential take on Alice called Alice in Chinatown. Cherry Blossom’s Alice falls down the rabbit hole and has to navigate her way through Chinatown bars–Mercury, 39Hotel, Soho–to gain entry to the Red Queen’s party. The show only ran for two weekends, which is a shame because I would love to see more of this brave, inventive theatre.